First Green star NIB on Howrse - The Interview

So the first ever Green star NIB (non-inbred) horse has finally arrived on Howrse. You can read about it below. This is a monumnetal achievement that has, quite literally, taken years come to fruition. Here at Ultimate Howrse we love to bring you hints, tips and news, but we also love to bring the inside story on the people who help make this game so wonderfully varied and exciting. Recently, we bought you an interview with moonbean and we're now very proud to bring you an interview with the people who have created the first Green star NIB in the whole game - HYDEIST and kaliko99. So sit back and enjoy this fascinating insight into the amazing world of NIB breeding.

• Ultimate Howrse (UH): Firstly, for those who don't know, what is a NIB horse?

• HYDEIST (HY): From Rivenwood’s NIB FAQ on the NIB Horses thread: “A NIB horse is a horse that is not inbred; every horse in its pedigree appears only once (with the exception of Ouranos and Gaia). Horses with "Horse Disappeared" in their pedigree are generally not accepted by NIB breeders unless the horses in question were bought before the horses disappeared and have verifiable pedigrees.” Basically that means no breeding brothers to sisters, or daughters to sires, etc. No easy path to a high GP as you need fresh lines every time you want to breed!

• UH: What made you want to become a NIB breeder, what's the appeal?

• kaliko99 (KA): I saw Yankee Lady bred NIB Appies which gave me the idea initially and I moved it to Connies. It’s an interesting challenge as blupping foundations and lower GP howrses takes more skill than doing monsters. Also to breed good NIB takes skill in selective breeding, tracing lines etc. Also there is a much better sense of community and team work between fellow NIBers than in the high GP world. High GP breeding can be stressful and there is constant rivalry for rankings and top GP. There is a much lower sense of achievement as each horse is purely about gains.

• HY: It’s something I started off doing instinctively to begin with when I was learning. I didn’t want to see any “gross” lines on my horses, like breeding siblings, etc. Then I realised it wasn’t frowned upon but I didn’t have the time or money to keep up with the GP race and started hunting out foundations instead because they matched my starter. After that it became a bit of an obsession, and my herd grew. The appeal now is in being able to blup out low-skilled horses and the pride you can take in knowing how much work went into your new foal. Like Kaliko said, there is also a brilliant NIB community – we may all do different breeds but we support each other rather than being highly competitive. It’s just a lot more fun and much more relaxed, although it can be frustrating when the game goes against you!

• UH: So what makes NIB breeding harder than non-NIB breeding?

• HY: The worst thing really is it’s very hard to find decent foundation horses for sale. I prefer to get them as foals so I can game them and train them my way but beggars can’t always be choosers when there are so few available. When they are, they’re often expensive. I really advise any prospective NIBers to establish their own lines and to own the foundations if possible, as a “Horse Disappeared” in the lines later means the horse can’t really be verified as NIB easily.

• KA: We need to blup new lines continually, for example it takes 64 foundies, 32 1st gens, 16 2nd gens, 8 rd gens, 4 4th gens and 2 5th gens for green star. That’s 128 blups! Now to get a star inbreeding does not take anywhere near. And after the 1st star we need to blup the same again just to get a small GP increase. The other challenge is getting hold of a constant supply of good quality foundations.

• UH: Why is BLUPing so difficult for NIB breeders?

• KA: It is very difficult to get comps wins as our foundations and NIBs are all very low GP compared to the GP breeders blupping howrses which means we need to try and achieve wins against howrses with often 4 times the skills. This means it takes a lot of skill in what to train up and what comps to enter to try and get wins. It also means team work is often required to blup to supply fillers. I often find high GP bluppers see the NIB affix and use us as easy fillers.

• HY: Which really isn’t very friendly of them but we’ve had the tables turned on us quite a few times in recent months. First there was the morale drop for losing competitions, which affected everyone, then there was the range widening in competitions. That little change there was nearly my programme’s undoing – suddenly high GP skillers were in against my NIBs and naturally flattening them! Then there was the beach rides, which take skills from the horse’s worst skill and put it into the top one, meaning that monster skilled horses with one untrained skill, like jump maybe, could see our ponies and claim easy wins on them. And most recently there was the changing of the Ageing Point ranking to the Number Of Wins ranking… there was a boom in skillers target training (leaving one skill completely untrained in order to get into the low level competitions) after that and flattening low-skilled horses. Up against that calibre of horse, it’s not even enough to have every BM item on an NIB to win.

• UH: OK, so how long does it take to fully BLUP a NIB horse?

• KA: Depends on whether you use BM items or not. I personally buy passes and blup using timer and MA, and usually work alongside HYDEIST for fillers. In this case I can be blupped and bolded in just over an hour. Blupping without BM items or fillers could potentially take months.

• HY: How long is a piece of string? Hehe. It depends on a number of factors – how much you can age them (lots of APs or Morpheus’ Arms, or natural day-by-day ageing?), do you have a timer, and do you have a way of securing your wins? I use a timer and arms for mares and just arms for a stallion. The stallions obviously take longer but they normally are capable of getting more wins on their own as lower comps are open longer.

• UH: What's most satisfying about working as a NIB breeding team?

• KA: Having someone who has the same goals as you to share all the successes with. And obviously it halves the blupping!

• HY: Having someone to share all the highs and lows with! Teaming up with Kaliko only became official in the past couple of months but we’ve worked closely together for years, giving each other foals and coverings. It’s nice knowing you can trust someone else with your lines.

• KA: A NIB team requires more trust than a GP team as if they quit your lines are instantly ruined, unless you trust them implicitly to pass all howrses over. With GP lines, if someone breaks rank with sales or covers, you just blup harder to recover the lead.

• HY: But with NIB, if someone breaks off and quits the game, you could potentially lose years of hard work.

• UH: How do you organise a NIB breeding programme?

• KA: With lots of help from HYDEIST. Given my last disaster with bolted foundies I clearly can’t, lol.

• HY: Aww, that disaster was a total accident though – Howrse really should address that issue with bolted horses only showing offspring from the current gender they are. I keep track of what foundies we use with a spreadsheet right now although I am also working on a database which will be able to record everything down to the ID number of the horse for ease.

• UH: Do you have to buy a lot of passes?
  

• KA: Only if you choose to. I like blinged up pixels with GA coats and I prefer to blup with timer and MA, but lots of players have very successful NIB programmes without and there is certainly no pressure to buy passes. It is a condition in the top GP breeding teams to have a consistent supply of passes, where there is no such pressure with NIB.

• HY: You don’t have to buy passes for anything. There are ways to make passes in the game anyway, if you want them. I buy a few here and there (I’m a poor student) to support the game, and also to fund any arms/timers I need, but I’ll also buy or age pass horses and breed the odd unicorn to earn a few more. I have a few NIB friends who only use timers, or who put a Philosopher’s Stone on every horse so they have unlimited time to work them. It’s all preference.

• UH: So how did it feel to finally get that first Greenstar and how long did it take?

• KA: Well, it felt fantastic and I was so proud and happy to share it with HYDEIST and also our good friends livelyblueyes, Pollyanna202, letia and lanikot. As for how long it took, I have been working away on NIBs at a low level since 2007 and have been working in loose partnership with HYDEIST for maybe 2 years, however in the last year I made more of a push and in the last few months since HYDEIST and I teamed up formally we have been consistently blupping and breeding.

• HY: Yeah, I’ve always been quite slow with mine! Kaliko held the top NIB GP for the longest time with her pony Sister Act, so she definitely worked through the higher generations more than I did. I tended to keep the foundations going!

• KA: The first green star was achieved in around 3 months, as all of his lines were newer lines in an attempt to pair my Sister Act who was my current top GP, but used foundie lines we had both been collecting and blupping for much longer than that.

• HY: We definitely pushed harder just lately to try and get that star – friendly rivalry with the Arab NIBers! And believe me when I say you don’t want to know how many ageing points we burned through to get there! In the end, our baby actually hit the green star on his own without needing to be put to Sister Act. And due to some complications with outside lines, Sister Act’s family tree is a little precarious so we’re in the process of going through and rebreeding older horses to ensure our lines are secure. She’s still a very special mare though, having held the top GP for so long!

• UH: Would you recommend NIB breeding to other players?

• HY: Sure! If you’re patient, and you enjoy a challenge, NIB breeding could well be for you. It can get a bit costly when you’re starting, especially recently with the soaring price of foundations, but it’s very fulfilling and we have one of the best in-game communities on the game, in my opinion!

• KA: I would welcome anyone to give it a go, and the NIB community on the forum is extremely supportive. It’s a great challenge and a great chance to play the game your way. I am always happy to give advice to any player interested in NIB. =)

• HY: Yep, same here – I don’t bite. =)

• UH: Are all the horses you own 'NIBs' or do you carry out any other breeding programmes?

• HY: I also have NIB Purebred Spanish Horses, Peruvian Pasos and Lusitanos – I’m a bit crazy! But I also often have the odd skiller and unicorn to earn some equus/passes, and a big stable full of fillers for aiding other NIBers. I casually breed NIB on the four English-speaking regional servers.

• KA: I have a couple of high skilled EC howrses to give good lesson gains in my EC so I can blup my NIBs. I also have a large selection of fillers, which are not NIB they are just whatever is cheap in the sales. On INT I only actually breed NIB howrses though. I have in the past been part of several top GP teams and am part of a top GP team on UK Howrse but on INT I choose to focus on NIB.

• UH: Are you now setting your sights on that second Greenstar?

• HY: Wow, I think we’ll just be going for new green stars first to get a partner for Anything’s Possible! I can’t even begin to imagine how many foundations we’d need for two stars!

• KA: More than I want to consider seeing how we needed 64 to get a 6th gen! So probably 10-11 gens to the next star. That seems horrific!

• HY: I just worked out we could need 512 foundations if we’re VERY lucky… otherwise we need 1024! Yikes!

• UH: How do you feel the Howrse community responded to the recent plans by Owlient to change the GP of new foundation horses?
  

• KA: I think we joined together and supported one another and were united in our concern. I feel the community made an amazing gesture to HYDEIST and myself by supporting us with passes and BM items to help us to reach the NIB green star, a universal goal amongst the NIB breeders. In return I am now committed to helping and supporting other NIB breeders to achieve this goal. =)

• HY: Yes, the entire community was united, not just NIBers. We had support from some of the top ranking players, which was absolutely amazing, and NIBers scraped together everything they had to make sure our foal was born just in case these new foundations arrived with stars already on them. Sure, there were a few individuals who were determined to get under our skin and be generally unpleasant about the change, but as a community, we overcame all the hurdles and in the end we were rewarded with the powers that be listening to our request. It was truly an amazing day when that baby was born and the change was halted! I too am indebted to those who helped us out, and will do whatever I can to ensure other NIBers reach a little green star of their own to brighten their breeding programme!

• UH: Finally, anything you'd like to add?

• HY: I’d just like to say thank you to everyone who supported Kaliko and I during the push for the green star – in particular, thanks goes to livelyblueyes (our honorary partner), lanikot (a great friend and a true star for rallying the troops and holding us all together) and our best friends Pollyanna202 and Ietia, who have been there for us since the beginning, all those years back! Also, well done to everyone who opposed the GP change – we could never have stopped it without you all speaking up. =)

• Lastly, thank you Ultimate Howrse for interviewing us! We hope we’ve been able to give a bit of an insight into our breeding.

And a huge thank you to HYDEIST and kaliko99 for such a wonderful insight into the whole world of NIB breeding. We're certain it will encourage other players to give it a go too which we think would be a fantastic testament to all the hard work from these two, lovely players.

Better get blupping!

Patsy